Richard Nixon

It must be awfully hard to be a Fox News shill these days. The still flowing flood of incriminating evidence against Donald Trump and his sleazy family is nearly impossible to justify. The contortions that Fox News hosts and pundits have to employ seem painful in the extreme. Some of them aren’t even trying anymore.

That, however, is not the case with the crew at Fox and Friends, and their Saturday morning guest, Geraldo Rivera (video below). In a discussion about Don Trump, Jr.’s meeting with Russian operatives, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes crawled all over themselves trying to defend the indefensible. Eventually they wound up where they often do – blaming the media.

For his part, Geraldo Rivera set up his remarks by reminding everyone that the Trumps were close, personal friends. He restated his “tremendous respect and admiration” for them. Then he gently chided them for what he characterized as minor goofs. Rivera described the meetings with Russian government operatives promising dirt on Hillary Clinton as “understandable,” but “not criminal.” Legal experts disagree. He did manage some criticism of Don, Jr. for his “dissembling” otherwise known as lying.

And then Rivera went flying headfirst off the tracks. Co-host Abby Huntsman asked a typically asinine question. She wondered whether the media was to blame for the troubles Don, Jr. was undergoing. Because of course it was the media’s fault that Donnie met with unsavory Russians and then lied about it repeatedly. But Rivera’s historical analog to this affair was the presidency of Richard Nixon. His take on it was pure lunacy:

“During the years of Tricky Dick Nixon, 1972 and 1973 principally. If there had been a Fox News then, if there had been a Sean Hannity then, I do not believe President Nixon would ever have been forced to resign. Why do I say that? Because when you see how his story evolves, and he has no one to defend him, how everybody’s deserted him, no on got the other side of the story. So that rinky-dink burglary then metastasized into the cover up, which led to the tumult, the nuclear explosions in the administration, and finally the resignation of the President.”

“I think if we had Sean then, if we had Fox and Friends then, I think that President Nixon would have weathered that storm. Now, I think that President Trump will likewise weather the storm, but I think that it will cause amazing stresses.”

So Rivera blames the downfall of Nixon on the absence of defenders in the media. Not on the fact that he presided over an illegal break-in of the Democratic campaign office. Not on the threats and bribes and lies that marked the cover up. Rivera thinks there was another side to the story of Nixon’s corruption that wasn’t being told. You know, the good side of the corruption.

But the best part of this cognitive meltdown is Rivera’s accidental admission that Fox News is nothing more than an alibi generator for crooked Republicans. He’s saying that despite the obvious crimes, Nixon might have survived if he had Fox News to lie for him. Nixon’s problem wasn’t that he broke the law, violated his oath of office, and had no discernible ethics. It was that he didn’t have someone like Sean Hannity to fabricate excuses and point fingers at innocent bystanders.

By extension, that’s the role that Rivera is admitting that Fox News plays now. They are deliberately denying reality and replacing it with manufactured falsehoods. They are covering for Trump and serving up other sides to the story of his corruption. And they are accusing others (Obama, Clinton, etc.) of crimes without any evidence whatsoever. It’s a strategy of deceive and deflect. And, as with Nixon, despite the obvious crimes, the goal is for Trump et al to skate free. Of course, many observers have already known this about Fox News for years. But it is helpful when one of their top correspondents is dumb enough it out loud on the air.

From the outset of Donald Trump’s campaign he has made the media a target of his attacks, insults and retribution. He has called them liars and sleazy and horrible people. Keeping them penned up at his rallies was common, as was expelling those he especially disliked.

Organizations that advocate for the welfare of journalists have expressed their concerns with justifiable anxiety. The Committee to Protect Journalists issued a warning that “A Trump presidency would represent a threat to press freedom in the United States.” The National Press Club released a similar statement condemning Trump’s anti-press tactics as “unacceptable and dangerous to our democracy.”

Now Trump has taken his abuse a step further into an ominous future. He posted on Twitter a message that reeks of an authoritarian stranglehold on one of America’s most cherished principles. The Free Press. He tweeted:

Trump’s characterization of the press as “the enemy of the American People!” has roots in some of the most oppressive historical dictatorships. It goes back to ancient Roman times. However, it has been used as recently as the 1950’s by China’s Chairman Mao Tse-tung to suppress freedom. Trump’s usage is particularly repulsive because of the overtly violent overtones that infect so much of his rhetoric. Is he deliberately fomenting violence against the press now? As an aside, it’s curious that he thinks the media is the enemy of the American people, but that it isn’t his enemy.

In the United States, disgraced former President Richard Nixon made an almost identical statement in private. He said that “The press is the enemy, the establishment is the enemy, the professors are the enemy.” Sound familiar? But Trump is saying it very publicly. It’s also notable that Nixon’s Watergate scandal and Trump’s current transgressions have similar beginnings. The Republican operatives who broke into Democratic offices at the Watergate were called the “Plumbers” because their purpose was to plug up leaks. And that’s exactly the focus of Trump’s complaints.

The “enemy of the people” theme is likely the handiwork of Trump’s alt-right, white supremacist aide, Stephen Bannon. In 2012 his Breitbart News website featured a commentary by Trump supporter Pat Caddell. In it Caddell said that “The press’s job is to stand in the ramparts and protect the liberty and freedom of all of us from a government and from organized governmental power,” So far, so good. However, he continued to say that they have “desert[ed] those ramparts” and “made themselves the enemy of the American people.”

Mao, Nixon, Breitbart. Is there a pattern forming? Trump would be thrilled to discredit the media that he regards as the “opposition party.” Then he could rant relentlessly with his “alternative facts” and outright lies without restraint or objective scrutiny. He could rely on disreputable “news” manglers like Breitbart, Infowars, the National Enquirer, and Fox News to lead his campaign of disinformation.

This needs to be taken seriously. Trump is not kidding when he says the free press is the enemy. Last October he complained that “Our press is allowed to say whatever they want and get away with it.” Trump is actually appalled that the press can say whatever they want. It’s a freedom that he would eagerly undo given the opportunity. That would leave us with his factless accounts of a delusional world that exalts him and maligns his critics. He must be stopped by any (legal) means necessary.

The multitude of ethical lapses exposed during Donald Trump’s campaign for president could fill the Mariana Trench. From his fraudulent Trump University, to his charity scams, to his bankruptcies, to his pathological lying, Donald Trump has repeatedly proven that he has little use for the morality that guides most decent people, much less what would be required of a national leader.

Now Buzzfeed is reporting that Trump may have engaged in a deplorable act of privacy invasion at his exclusive Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida. The report details the accounts of former Mar-A-Lago employees who witnessed Trump listening in on the phone calls of his staff and guests:

“At Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach resort he runs as a club for paying guests and celebrities, Donald Trump had a telephone console installed in his bedroom that acted like a switchboard, connecting to every phone extension on the estate, according to six former workers. Several of them said he used that console to eavesdrop on calls involving staff.”

Four of the former staffers who revealed Trump’s bedroom phone follies spoke to Buzzfeed on the condition of anonymity due to their having signed non-disclosure agreements. Trump is famously obsessed with binding his associates with such gag orders. His recently fired campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was similarly restrained from commenting about Trump (which, for some inexplicable reason, didn’t stop CNN from hiring him as a commentator). One source said he had “direct knowledge that Trump ‘could pick up the phone in the bedroom and listen to any conversation that was going on.'”

Not surprisingly, Trump’s spokesperson, Hope Hicks, denied that he had ever eavesdropped on anyone saying simply that “This is totally and completely untrue.” Another Trump supporter who rejected these charges was his former butler, Anthony Senecal, who may be better known for a Facebook posting calling for President Obama to be shot, and adding that he would personally participate in a hanging.

For anyone who may be reluctant to accept that Trump would behave this atrociously, it should be noted that this isn’t the first time that Trump has been suspected of tapping the phones of his staff. Just last month, following the dismissal of his national political director, the New York Times reported that…

“A sense of paranoia is growing among his campaign staff members, including some who have told associates they believe that their Trump Tower offices in New York may be bugged, according to three people briefed on the conversations.”

There appears to be a disturbing pattern forming. Trump is displaying the combination of authoritarianism and paranoia that was emblematic of the Richard Nixon White House. Nixon, of course, was notorious for recording his conversations with White House staff and guests, a breach of ethics that eventually led to his downfall. And if past is prologue, this an ominous portent of the future should Trump manage to emerge victorious in November.

The ferocity with which Fox News is chasing the story about Hillary Clinton’s email is becoming a pathetic tale of desperation and jealousy. It’s not enough that they report wild speculation as fact, they are determined to shape their coverage into what they regard as the Valhalla of scandals: Watergate.

For the record, the Watergate affair involved blatantly criminal activity like burglary, political corruption, bribery, obstruction of justice, and presidential abuse of power. It began as a plot by the Nixon White House to steal private documents from the Democratic Party in order to secure his reelection by fraud. Then it evolved into a cover-up that included threats, deception, and million dollar payoffs.

The attempt to analogize Watergate to Clinton’s use of personal email accounts on a private computer server stretch the boundaries of absurdity. Even if the allegations that there were classified documents involved were true (and there is no evidence of that at this time), there is absolutely no suggestion, by even her harshest critics, that she was motivated by any larcenous effort to advance her own interests financially or politically. In other words, there was no intent to commit a crime.

However, to hear Fox News tell it, Clinton’s email controversy is identical to the felonies committed by Nixon’s thugs, many of whom went to prison for their crimes. Today Fox News contributor Meghan McCain (John’s daughter) wondered if “this could be this generation’s Watergate.” Yesterday Fox’s Special Report aired an entire segment devoted to baseless conjecture about Watergate. Also yesterday, Fox’s judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano tried to compare Clinton’s use of personal emails to Nixon’s habit of secretly recording everything that took place in the Oval Office. He never really got around to explaining what was similar about it. It was enough, for Fox’s purposes, just to plant the slanderous suggestion. Fox contributor John Bolton also weighed in to imply some conspiratorial connection between Clinton’s current email flak and her service on the Democratic Senate staff that investigated Nixon.

There was much more of this Watergating going on at Fox on other programs as they went all out to align Clinton with what is perhaps the worst political scandal in American history. But Watergate belongs to the Republicans no matter how much they whine about it. And whine they do. Before the Clinton campaign launched it was a regular obsession with Fox to compare anything associated with President Obama to Watergate. From Benghazi, to the IRS, to Libya, to Fast and Furious, and even to UFOs, Fox saw everything through their Watergate filter. [See News Corpse’s Illustrated Guide To The Fox News Obsession With Watergate]

Now they want to transfer their shame to Democrats so badly that they have lost all rational comprehension of what Watergate even entailed. Their accusations just seem anguished and impotent. But don’t let that make you think they will abandon their fetish for projecting Watergate’s stigma on Clinton or other Democrats. They are fully committed to their rewriting of history and they know that their dimwitted audience will eat it up.

If it seems to you that that President Obama has been under an investigative microscope since the moment he took office, it’s only because that’s pretty much true. Republicans were determined to foil anything positive that this president placed on his agenda, and their primary method of achieving that end has been perpetual investigations of trumped up scandals.

But even with their single-minded devotion to destroying this presidency, the House GOP has not produce any evidence of wrongdoing that implicated the White House. Of course, if their purpose was merely to keep the nation from enjoying the benefits of a productive government, Republicans can claim some success. They have certainly obstructed the creation of millions of jobs; progress on environmental protection; reforms of health care and immigration and tax policies; and numerous other initiatives that might have advanced the country’s well being. But any actual manifestations of scandal have been nonexistent.

To illustrate the level of incompetence attributable to these Tea Party hacks, it is useful to put their job performance into historical perspective. One way to do this is to compare their progress with that of prior congressional sessions working on similarly lofty projects. And since there has been so much talk of impeachment of late, it seemed like that would make a good model for comparison.

So get this: From the date that the U.S. Senate voted to establish a select committee to investigate Watergate, until the resignation of President Nixon, it took about 15 months. To reiterate, that’s from the date that the committee was approved, through the maze of contested hearings, the presentation of evidence, the White House defense, and all the way through the conclusion with a disgraced (and obviously guilty) president stepping down, only a little more than a year transpired.

Compare that to the current House Committee on Oversight’s investigation of whether the IRS discriminated against conservative organizations. Those hearings began 16 months ago. So they have already exceeded the time allotted to impeaching Nixon. However, there has not been a single shred of incriminating evidence uncovered. Plus, if you count from the time the Ways and Means Committee began their inquiries, it has been over 38 months. And these hearings are still continuing.

Let’s also compare the House hearings on Fast and Furious, the botched gun trafficking sting that actually began in the Bush Administration. But limiting this to just the Obama era, Congress has been investigating this since June 2011 – 38 months and counting. And nothing of substance has come from it.

The granddaddy of the Obama era pseudo-scandals has to be Benghazi. Over at Fox News they are suffering from a rare form of Benghazi Tourettes, spitting out the word every few seconds for no apparent reason other than to stir up their dimwitted viewers. So far, the congressional investigations into this have been ongoing for 23 months, with nothing to show for it. And on this issue they have been the most insistent that there is a correlation to Watergate. In fact, the Watergate angle has been an obsession that they tie to their wet dreams of impeachment.

Even the impeach-happy congress of the Clinton era took far less time to conduct hearings and actually try the President for high crimes and misdemeanors, than it has taken for any of the current Congress to even find a crumb of presidential misbehavior. From the inception of the House proceedings to impeach Clinton, until his acquittal in the Senate, it took all of four and a half months. If you count from the date that the Drudge Report posted its tabloid article identifying the Monica Lewinsky affair, it was still only 13 months.

To sum up, every one of the current phony scandals, that are wastefully consuming time and taxpayer dollars, are exceeding that spent on the Nixon and Clinton impeachments. And none of these scandals have produced any hint of wrongdoing. That’s fairly conclusive proof that the Republicans serving in Congress now are profoundly incompetent. There are really only three possible explanations for this. Either 1) There is no evidence and they are wasting everyone’s time, or 2) There is evidence, but these blockheads are too stupid to stumble over it, or 3) They don’t give a damn about evidence, they are only trying to smear the President.

Either way, they need to be relieved of their duties at the earliest opportunity, which would be this November. That makes it the responsibility of American voters to step up and do their duty. All you have to do is vote. And rest assured, if you do not, this GOP idiocy will continue for the next two years and will likely be escalated into a full-blown impeachment of Obama. For God’s sake, don’t let that happen.

The attack on the U.S. embassy in Libya was a tragic event that took the lives of four Americans serving their country. But rather than reporting what occurred with dignity and respect, Fox News immediately sought to politicize the tragedy in an effort to damage President Obama during a heated campaign. Unfortunately, their zeal to create a phony election issue has also harmed the families of the victims and the search for the truth.

In the wake of the attack there was rampant speculation as to the cause and the participants. Right-wing pundits and politicians didn’t wait for any facts before declaring their conclusions that it was premeditated terrorism. The Obama administration took a more thoughtful and responsible approach by not making any definitive statements. Conservatives portrayed that as weakness and continued to muddy the waters with baseless yammering.

As usual, Fox News took the lead in propagating rumors and innuendo. Their Fox Nation web site has published a steady stream of one-sided criticisms of the Obama administration. Amongst the wildly unfounded accusations are charges of deliberate cover-ups complete with comparisons to Watergate. Thus was born Benghazi-Gate.

Ever since the mid-1970’s scandal that drove Richard Nixon from office, partisans have been attempting to slap a “gate” at the end of any controversy. But it should be remembered that Watergate was not simply some government gaffe. It was an intentionally criminal act that included breaking into Democratic headquarters, paying off accomplices for their silence, and lying to investigators from law enforcement and congress. All of that unlawfulness was in pursuit of personal political benefits to the Nixon White House and reelection effort.

What occurred in Libya was tragic, but it was certainly not the result of someone in the White House pursuing personal gain. Nor was there any hint of corruption or clandestine plots to sabotage a political foe. Nor were there any attempts to covertly mask unlawful activity. In other words, there is nothing in this story that remotely resembles Watergate. This is just an attempt on the part of Fox to throw more mud at the President and hope that some of it sticks. It is their contribution to the Romney campaign that has been so woefully inept.

It has been less than three weeks since the Libyan embassy attack. That is hardly enough time to have conducted a thorough investigation and arrive at a conclusive decision. It doesn’t help matters with bitter partisans screaming for the heads of government agencies and even the impeachment of the President. In fact, that’s the kind of background noise that actually inhibits the process and unnecessarily incites further hostilities. Imagine the glee with which Al Qaeda would greet the news that their violent protests led to the downfall of the American president who ordered the killing of their leader. That is who the Republicans are aligning themselves with in this attempt to oust Obama from office.

The classic symptoms of obsessive paranoia are exhibiting themselves again in the psyches of delusional right-wingers. The villainous shadows they conjure up in every corner of their warped minds betrays how desperately sick they have become.

The latest blood vessel to burst in these over-anxious conservative foreheads is displayed in an article published yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, the once respected financial paper that Rupert Murdoch has transformed into another of his tabloid rags. The item’s headline blared ominously that, “The President Has a List” (cue spooky music).

OMG! Is he checking it twice? The article’s author, Kimberley Strassel, seems to be alleging that President Obama has usurped the powers of Santa Claus and is preparing to rain a frosty judgment down on Republicans who were naughty this election year. They know who they are, and now, with his new North Pole Initiative, so does Obama. He even knows when they’re asleep and/or awake.

The article’s sub-head went into a little more panicky detail saying, “Barack Obama attempts to intimidate contributors to Mitt Romney’s campaign.” That’s a pretty scary thought. What will become of our democracy if powerful political players go around harassing the financial backers of their opponents? It could end up instigating slanderous attacks on private citizens who merely want to participate in the democratic process. The GOP would never contemplate doing such a thing to backers of Democrats. Notice the respect with which they always regard George Soros and Barbara Streisand. Nevertheless, Strassel rolls out the big guns with allusions to the famously paranoid Richard Nixon:

“Richard Nixon’s ‘enemies list’ appalled the country for the simple reason that presidents hold a unique trust. Unlike senators or congressmen, presidents alone represent all Americans. Their powers—to jail, to fine, to bankrupt—are also so vast as to require restraint. Any president who targets a private citizen for his politics is de facto engaged in government intimidation and threats.”

Exactly! So if mega-wealthy conservative activists drop boatloads of cash into dishonest campaigns designed to demonize the President as an anti-American, Marxist, alien, aligned with Al-Qaeda, the President and his supporters should just shut their mouths and permit those poor billionaires to do as they please. If God didn’t want filthy rich robber barons and corporations to pervert democracy he wouldn’t have given them the Citizen’s United Supreme Court decision.

The source of this bubbling cauldron of conservative angst is a web site that the Obama campaign operates to counter the abundant feces-flinging from the right. It is produced by Obama’s “Truth Team” and consists entirely of disseminating documented information with the ghastly purpose of helping people to make informed decisions. In particular, there is an article titled “Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney’s donors” that reveals who is bankrolling Romney’s campaign and what their motivations might be. It begins by saying…

“As the presumptive GOP nominee, Mitt Romney is relying on a cadre of high-dollar and special-interest donors to fund his campaign. Giving information about his real policy intentions and high-level access for cash, Romney and Republicans are working hard to pull in as much money as they can from wealthy lobbyists, corporations, and PACs.”

No wonder the right is worried. We certainly can’t have people going around telling the truth about wealthy special interests who are trying to help Romney buy this election. And even though none of the atrocities Strassel mentions in her column (“to jail, to fine, to bankrupt”) are occurring, it’s bad enough that truthful biographies and affiliations are being brought into the light of day.

Adding to the cacophony of crazy is Rupert Murdoch’s cable crew at Fox News. Neil Cavuto took up the very same topic as Strassel’s WSJ story (by coincidence, I’m sure) and engaged in a profound exchange with Fox legal analyst Lis Wiehl:

Cavuto: Called out for shelling out. Private donors to Mitt Romney outed on an Obama campaign web site. The site ripping their record, even saying that they’re betting against America by giving cash to Romney’s campaign. Is this legal?Lis Wiehl: It may be. I went on the web site today. It is frightening. I mean, I don’t like to get on any list, unless it’s a birthday party list or something like that, but a Nixon enemy list, McCarthyism…

First of all, Cavuto and Wiehl are just plain delusional in speculating that there is anything illegal about posting truthful information about political donors. And while Cavuto is just an idiot, Wiehl is a lawyer and should know better. Secondly, the web site does not say that Romney donors are “betting against America by giving cash to Romney’s campaign.” It says they are betting against America by outsourcing American jobs, closing American factories, and unlawfully foreclosing on American homeowners. Then they take their tainted winnings and parlay them into Romney’s Wheel of Nefarious Fortune. But the best example of the looming dementia on the part of these dimwits is Wiehl’s allusion to her sterling investigative skills. She seemed so proud of herself for navigating the byzantine maze that Obama’s functionaries constructed to hide their true identities. She bragged to Cavuto that…

Wiehl: You’ve got to through a few links. It’s not that easy. I’m not a computer person, but I did manage to do it myself.

Here is the maze of deception through which Wiehl had to rummage:

How on earth did she ever discover the real source of this web site? Only a crack investigator with Wiehl’s superior legal experience could have figured out how to scroll to the bottom of the page. Those Obama web developers are mighty crafty, but no match for Wiehl.

This isn’t the first time that the Murdoch empire has attempted to associate Obama with Nixon and McCarthy. A couple of months ago the Wall Street Journal published an article by Ted Olsen that accused the President of similar list crimes. On that occasion it was the infamous Koch brothers who were being set up for presidential attacks. It’s too bad that the billionaire Koch brothers are so defenseless that they have to resort to having their lawyer (Olsen) be given space in the Wall Street Journal to whine about being criticized by the president they have vowed to destroy.

It’s also a little ironic that the right is so vociferously disturbed by tactics made popular by people they now regard as heroes. Both Nixon and McCarthy have been the beneficiaries of recent rehabilitations by their fellow Republicans. We even have GOP stars like Allen West declaring that commies are running rampant through the corridors of congress. McCarthy would be so proud. And Glenn Beck sanitized Nixon’s enemies list by saying that it was “just about who’s not coming to state dinners.” Yet conservatives will still site these historical scumbags in a negative sense if they think they can tarnish the President with it. Oh what a tangled web…..

Today Fox Nation ran an article by Jeffrey Kuhner, a devout birther and columnist for the “Moonie” Washington Times. The article sought to draw a correlation between President Obama and Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal.

Kuhner’s outrageous theory was that the failed Department of Justice’s “Fast and Furious” initiative, intended to track weapons sold in the U.S. to Mexican drug cartels, was somehow akin to Watergate. But the only thing that this piece illuminates is the profound ignorance that Fox Nation, the Washington Times, and Kuhner have of what happened at the Watergate, and the subsequent cover-up.

The scandal began when Nixon’s henchmen unlawfully broke into the Democratic Party’s campaign offices one night. They were caught and arrested. The White House, recognizing the political fallout if they were implicated, decided to try to payoff the perpetrators and sweep the whole thing under the rug. That effort failed as well, and the administration came crashing down amidst charges of felony burglary, bribery, corruption, and abuse of power.

Kuhner alleges that the Fast and Furious project was “part of an illegal Obama administration operation.” First of all, the operation was initiated during the Bush administration. Secondly, while it may have been ill-advised, it was not illegal. What’s more, although it failed to achieve its intended goals, it was not rooted in corruption or personal gain by any participant. So Kuhner is stretching mightily to associate Fast & Furious with the obvious law-breaking engaged in by Nixon’s “plumbers” and the bribes that later emerged.

Fox News has been peddling this story for weeks. They have been attempting to fabricate an emotional appeal built around allegations that guns sold in the program wound up in the hands of Mexican criminals and resulted in the death of an American Border Patrol Agent. There is, however, no definitive evidence that the agent was shot with one of the guns from the DoJ operation. But even if there were such evidence, do these simple-minded fable spinners at Fox News really believe that if the errant guns from that project had not been lost, that the wealthy kingpins of the drug cartels would not have found other ways to arm themselves? They were well armed before Fast and Furious and they are certainly finding sources for new weapons today. The risks faced by Border Patrol Agents, and all law enforcement officers, have always been, and will always be, a disturbing reality. But they are in no more danger as result of Fast and Furious than they would have been had it been called off by the Bush DoJ that started it.

Unfortunately, in addition to dealing with the failure of the project, and the loss of life, we also have to endure Fox News exploiting the affair for their partisan political ends. That’s a shameful way to undertake their role as a so-called news enterprise, but it is no less than what we expect from Fox.

In 1967, John McCain was shot out of the North Vietnamese sky, crash landed in a lake, taken prisoner, and held in captivity for … 41 years, so far.

No one can dismiss the unimaginable agony of enduring six years in an enemy prisoner of war camp. It is surely a brutal experience both physically and mentally. It is the sort of experience that never leaves you and, indeed, it seems never to have left John McCain. His entire post-POW frame of reference is shaped by what he went through, and also by what he missed as a consequence of his incarceration.

The tenor of his candidacy is quagmired in history, and that is not a reference to his age. It is his policy proposals that harken back to the past. And it is a vision of the past that is still very much alive in McCain’s mind. His arrest in Vietnam simultaneously arrested his growth as an observer of politics, foreign affairs, and diplomacy.

It’s hard to tell lately if McCain is running to succeed President Bush, Gen. Petraeus, or perhaps Gen. Westmoreland. The persistent theme that McCain has adopted with regard to Iraq is identical to the 1970’s era military establishment and Richard Nixon’s “Peace With Honor” contrivance. Nixon also promised to stay the course and bring our troops home when victory was achieved, despite overwhelming agreement, even amongst his advisers, that nothing recognizable as victory was likely to result in Vietnam.

Now, McCain accuses Obama of preferring to lose a war in order to win a political campaign. But it is McCain who is pursuing a political goal at the expense of America’s interests. McCain is crafting an election scheme that parallels Nixon’s in 1972. Win the office by assuring voters that America is always right and thus, invincible. Then worry about proving it later. Unfortunately, the post-election scenario would also mirror Nixon’s, with an eventual withdrawal from Iraq that fails to achieve any objective articulated by Bush or McCain. And like Nixon’s mis-adventures in Laos and Cambodia, McCain’s Iraq exit could include a detour through Iran. But McCain doesn’t concern himself with these realities because he is too fixated on prevailing politically. And that’s exactly what he is hypocritically accusing Obama of.

As further evidence of McCain’s confinement to the past, consider his recent advertisement titled “Summer of Love.” It begins with images of colorful Hippies at protests, and music festivals. The announcer declares it a time of “uncertainty, hope and change,” skillfully associating uncertainty with two words that have become iconic within Barack Obama’s campaign. It then proceeds to insult an entire generation by asserting that McCain had “another kind of love – of country,” thereby implying that young Americans in the 60’s and 70’s were less than patriotic. As one of them I can assure you that it wasn’t because we hated our country that we dedicated ourselves to peace, civil rights, and free expression. Are those unpatriotic aspirations?

This is not the first time that McCain has attacked the Woodstock generation. In fact, he even opposed modest funding for a museum that commemorated the era and the event. Some may agree with McCain that…

“The Woodstock Museum is a shining example of what’s wrong with Washington on pork-barrel, out-of-control spending.”

Personally, I think that an event that drew nearly half a million people, featured some of the most popular and creative artists in the world, and emerged as emblematic of one of the most significant cultural movements of the century, deserves a small facility for remembrance and study. In addition, the Bethel Woods Arts Center, as it is called, is a working contemporary venue that enriches the community both creatively and financially.

The fact that McCain cannot recognize the importance of that era, and the contributions of citizens who lived through it, is representative of a larger problem for him. The time he spent in captivity was a defining time for those of us back home. There were so many socially profound events that altered just about everyone who lived through them. John McCain was not one of them. The history that shaped millions of Americans, McCain only heard about secondhand, after the fact. For example:

So it may not be so surprising that McCain is trapped in a time warp, unable to relate to a country and world that shared these tumultuous experiences, but from which he was excluded. It may explain his hostility to a generation that was arguably more engaged in public service and community activism than any generation before or since. It puts into perspective the persistent pessimism expressed in the ad above that ends by saying to voters “Don’t hope for a better life.”

While many of us who went through the 60’s and 70’s have assimilated those experiences and included them as we’ve grown over time, McCain has remained stagnant and, in many ways, ignorant in the procession of time. That’s why, for us, the Summer of Love will always be remembered with an equal measure of frustration and pride that reflects the reality of that historic time. But McCain will only recall a combination of frightening changes and an idealized portrait of a sitcom utopia. That’s not a vision for the future that offers much hope. It’s not a vision of the future at all.Contine reading →